3 days ago

3 days ago

Three key takeaways from Seton Hall’s dramatic Big East Quarterfinal upset of Villanova.

Villanova’s chances at a top seed took a major hit. Seton Hall isn’t a terrible team but because of some bad losses and a weak non-conference schedule, its RPI is well outside of the top 100. This is only Villanova’s fourth loss of the season, but it means that it won’t be playing any more games until next week after the brackets are announced. The Wildcats are light on big-time wins so their resume will be looked at with more scrutiny after this loss. The general consensus was that Villanova would earn a No. 1 seed with a Big East Tournament title or even just a trip to the championship game, but that won’t happen now and Villanova’s chances of getting the final top seed are significantly lower.

Seton Hall played with a ton of confidence. After surviving a Butler team that beat them twice, the Pirates played with nothing to lose and gave it everything they had today. For a hard-luck team, it finally paid off. Coming into this tournament, Seton Hall had lost an astounding six games either by one point or in overtime. In two games at Madison Square Garden, Kevin Willard’s team has flipped the script with two one-point victories and one massive upset. This win against Villanova, ranked third in the AP Top 25, was Seton Hall’s first ever top-three win in program history. The Pirates had previously been 0-30 against the top three of the AP poll before this afternoon’s win.

Free throw shooting cost Villanova the game, but points off turnovers nearly won it for the Wildcats. Villanova shot 15-of-25 (60 percent) from the charity stripe this afternoon with JayVaughn Pinkston in particular having a very rough game (3-of-10). For as much as free throws eventually wound up costing the Wildcats the game, disrupting Seton Hall’s offense and creating live ball turnovers. Villanova turned those into quick points with most of them coming during a 16-0 run that allowed the Wildcats to turn a 13-point deficit into a three-point lead, a run that seemed to take the air out of Seton Hall’s upset bid at the time. Villanova’s pressure bothered the Pirates for most of the second half, forcing them into wasted possessions and bad shots. However, the free throw struggles proved insurmountable for Villanova.

The biggest news in college basketball right now is not the games that are being played, but instead the ones that are not being played. For the second night in a row, a significant game (or games–depending on your threshold) was postponed. Louisville-Temple and Southern Methodist-Rutgers might not have the national appeal of Wednesday night’s postponed Duke-North Carolina game, but they both have a significant impact on the NCAA Tournament picture. Unlike the Duke-UNC game, which will be played more than a week later, these two games will be played just one day later so it should not affect the teams scheduling too much. If you don’t think that timing of rescheduling makes that big of a difference wait until you hear the people on ESPN talking about Duke’s ridiculous eight-day stretch starting on Saturday–hosting Maryland for the last time in the foreseeable future, at Georgia Tech, at UNC, and home against Syracuse.

We have heard of a lot of reasons for suspensions (mostly unofficial because schools are so vague with their reasoning), but we have never heard of a player being suspended for cursing, but that appears to be why Memphis suspended freshman Dominic Woodson. According to reports, Josh Pastner, who does not curse, became agitated enough with Woodson’s language during Wednesday’s game against UCF that he told Woodson to leave the bench and subsequently suspended him so he will not make the trip to Connecticut for the team’s game on Saturday. We are not sure if it was a specific word that Woodson said that set Pastner off, but it is an interesting precedent given how many players and well-known coaches use profane language during games.

Speaking of suspensions, prior to last night’s game against St. John’s, Kevin Willard announced that he had suspended seniors Brian Oliver and Eugene Teague indefinitely for coming to a practice “with not great attitudes”. If that is actually the sole reason for their suspension we suspect that indefinite won’t be that good. We would suspect that there probably is something more going on here than just this one practice, but with the current state of Seton Hall and their one-point loss last night (a combined 22.1 points and 11.3 rebounds per game could have been useful) we doubt that they will be out very long even if Kevin Willard’s contact goes through the 2019-20 season.

This week’s edition of Luke Winn’s Power Rankings starts off point guard-heavy, but the statistics that jumped out to us were the statistical comparisons for Duke and Michigan based on their Ken Pomeroy adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency scores. There are not any particularly strong predictors for how those teams fare in the NCAA Tournament, but it is interesting to see the historical comparisons. It was also amusing to see how ridiculous the adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency numbers were for the 2005-06 Gonzaga team was. If you are having trouble placing that team, their season ended with Adam Morrison crying on the court.

With this weekend being NBA All-Star Weekend, SI.com decided to put together their own NCAA All-Star teams using a two team draft. Our biggest takeaway from this is that as usual we tend to agree with Luke Winn that the draft order was inexcusable (sorry, Chris). The two teams obviously end up being pretty solid even if we would question the starting lineups. We cannot understand starting Nik Stauskas over Gary Harris (assuming that he is healthy, which is how it appears that this seems to be done). We would be a bit more interested in seeing how this would turn out with a few more people picking teams since the talent is so concentrated with just two teams being formed.

Marquette freshman Jajuan Johnson suffered a sprained ankle in practice on Wednesday. There was some concern among the Marquette faithful after Johnson sent out three tweets that playfully hinted that he was hurt, but they were taken down soon after. Fellow freshman Duane Wilson was hurt before the season started and decided to redshirt this season. Hopefully Johnson’s injury is nothing severe as he has been getting more consistent minutes recently, and after being such a highly-touted prospect, we would hope that he can start to come into his own as the season progresses.

Another day, more attention and praise for Creighton‘s All-American, Doug McDermott. ESPN.com‘s Eamonn Brennan took a look at his chase for a career mark of 3,000 points. The second leading scorer in the nation has turned his game up a notch recently despite a sprained shoulder. Brennan also places McDermott at the top of his Wooden Watch list, and says quite frankly that the award is his to lose. With an offensive rating of 121.6 on 33 percent usage, it is no wonder that the nation is starting to pay more attention to the uber-efficient senior.

Seton Hall is getting some much needed help as Eugene Teaguewill return from injury on Saturday. Teague has not played in a conference game yet as the Pirates head to Georgetown with a 1-3 record. Teague’s return is obviously a huge game-changer for Kevin Willard as his starting center was averaging nearly a double -double with 10.8 points and 9.4 rebounds per game prior to his injury. Besides the obvious statistics that show his value on the court, his size is much needed as the Pirates have been deficient all year in their frontcourt. Teague has the experience and strength to battle down low in the Big East and brings a fair amount of leadership that is difficult to replicate.

St. John’s began the year with talk as a potential sleeper to win the league and some coaches saying that they had the more talent than anybody. Unfortunately for Steve Lavin and crew, the Johnnies’ season has not gone to plan as they have seriously struggled so far in conference play. After last night’s loss in double-overtime to Providence, they Red Storm are o-5 in league play and had yet to look impressive. Zach Braziller at the New York Post takes a look at why they have gotten off to such a bad start. He argues that the players have been settling for too many tough jump shots, failing to use their size as an advantage, and ultimately are playing inefficiently. Lavin is widely renowned as a tremendous recruiter, but the knock on him since his days at UCLA has always been that he isn’t a great coach in game situations. After going two extra periods with Providence, hopefully the team has seen what it can do to compete with the top teams in the league, because any more bad losses and St. John’s dwindling hopes of a postseason berth will be long gone.

Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated has one of the best and most interesting power rankings out there and this week he has two Big East teams on his list of 16 teams, as Villanova moved up to fifth and Creighton jumped to 11th. Winn takes a look at both of the team’s three-point shooting. In Villanova’s case, he points out that the Wildcats have the biggest gap between their 3PA/100FGA and their opponents 3PA/100FGA , at about 13. Creighton is second at about seven. The Wildcats shoot 44.8 of their shots from behind the arc as opposed to their opponents trying about a third from there. Winn also highlights Creighton’s lumberjack three point specialist, Ethan Wragge.

It was a rough weekend for Providence. The Friars took a beating at Villanova on Sunday night after getting news on Saturday that highly-touted freshman Brandon Austin would be transferring from the school. Austin had yet to play a single minute in a Providence uniform because he was suspended before the season (along with fellow freshman Rodney Bullock) for breaking school rules. His departure hurts the Friars’ future prospects considerably, as he was poised to take on a major role next year with the personnel losses of seniors Bryce Cotton and Kadeem Batts. This is on top of the injury to Kris Dunn, which will keep him out for the rest of the season. It is unfortunate that a year that looked so promising has turned into an 0-2 start in conference play with a postseaon berth looking increasingly unlikely.

Last year’s Wisconsin Mr. Basketball, Luke Fischer, a player who decided to attend Indiana over Creighton and Marquette, decided to transfer last week. He took a few days to decide and ultimately picked Marquette over Creighton and Milwaukee as his next destination. Fischer played high school an hour away from Milwaukee and will have the chance to contribute with the Golden Eagles immediately. He will have to sit out until the end of the fall semester, but he will have two -and-a-half seasons upon his return. Anonymous Eagle breaks down the transfer details as well as the scholarship situation for Marquette, which looks like one of the someone will not be making it onto campus next year unless a current player transfers. Paint Touches breaks down the impact and importance of the transfer, as Fischer is expected to fill a big void in the frontcourt with Chris Otule, Davante Gardner and Jamil Wilson graduating.

Seton Hall started Big East play with an overtime win over Providence, but senior leader Eugene Teague looks like he will be out a while dealing with effects from a concussion he suffered a week ago against Lafayette. Teague was still feeling post-concussion symptoms last Thursday, with head coach Kevin Willard saying that he “is going to be out for awhile, that’s just the way it is. He took a really hard fall, and we’re going to be extra cautious and do what’s best for him. Whether its a week, two weeks, three weeks, we just don’t know and we really have to be careful with him and do what’s in his best interest.” The senior is one of the Pirates’ best players and the lack of his presence in the post hurts Seton Hall considerably. Willard has to decide quickly whether he wants to burn freshman Rashed Anthony‘s redshirt to add a big body inside, because it is going to be difficult to play without a center with a very tough stretch against Villanova, Marquette and Georgetown coming up, all in the next two weeks.

Villanova played masterfully against Providence on Sunday but survived a major scare during the blowout victory. Halfway through the second half and with the win already in the bag, Wildcats’ Ryan Arcidiacono and Dylan Ennis ran into each other, leaving the former dazed requiring help to the bench. After being examined by the trainer, he was luckily able to return to action and help the Wildcats finish off the win. Jay Wright assured everyone that “Arch” is just fine. He shot the ball well and hopes to get out of a slump so far this season. After shooting 32 percent from beyond the arc last year, he has slipped to a chilly 25 percent this season. If he can get things going with his jumper, it will be hard for teams to stop the Wildcats as they have a versatile offense that can create points in a number of ways.

Creighton‘s Sports Information Director, Rob Anderson, tweeted out some very interesting stats this weekend as Omaha froze over. Greg McDermott’s program has started 12-2 or 13-1 for the third straight year, and for the fifth time since 2002-03. The only other teams to do that are Syracuse, Missouri, Illinois, Gonzaga and Louisville. To have accomplished strong starts to the season so many times speaks to the consistently high level the team has performed the past decade, joining a number of schools with great basketball history and tradition. Anderson also pointed out how well the Bluejays’ offense performed against San Diego State back in November. Creighton is the only team to score more than 65 points against them this season other than top-ranked Arizona (69), and the Bluejays averaged 1.123 points per possession in that contest. Creighton has climbed the RPI ratings as well, and now sit at 22nd in America. At 2-0 in league play and looking like a team running on all cylinders, the rest of the Big East should be on notice that this team is not going to be intimidated by anything.

What an opener for the new Big East. The league had two overtime thrillers, there was an upset, and all three of the new members impressed. Here are some takeaways from a great day of hoops.

St. John’s vs. Xavier

St. John’s is great in transition, but struggles mightily in the halfcourt: The Johnnies rushed out to a big lead in the first eight minutes, in large part to their transition offense. They scored their first seven points in transition off of turnovers or running after rebounds. Throughout the game it was evident that the halfcourt offense was not working well and often times ended with a contested jump shot. The Red Storm made a push in the second half by pushing the ball up-court, but ended up settling for tough shots as the game winded down. D’Angelo Harrison, Rysheed Jordan, and Orlando Sanchez all are capable of running the break and Jordan had a great game as he got to the rim, hit some outside shots, and showed a nice pull-up jumper. Many talk about this team’s great talent, but their halfcourt offense is limiting their ability to use their athleticism. If the Johnnies want to win go from an under-achieving team to an NCAA Tournament one, they need to get out in transition, while they improve their offensive sets.

Seton Hall vs. Providence

Seton Hall can get out of the cellar in the new Big East: What a game! A great double overtime thriller on opening night. Seton Hall showed incredible fight and resolve yesterday as they saw their double digit lead dissolve in the final minutes. Some questionable calls did not help them in the extra sessions, but they made winning plays when it mattered. With starting center Eugene Teague our for the game, Kevin Willard was without his best post player. The Pirates forced the Friars into 14 turnovers, eight in the first half, which helped create most of the early offense. They limited Bryce Cotton to 1-8 from three and the Friars struggled all night to score. The win should give the team a ton of confidence going forward as Brian Oliver, Brandon Mobley, and Jaren Sina stepped up to make crucial baskets. Sina came off the bench in overtime to hit a three with two minutes left to spark the Pirates. Oliver was the player of the game as his hot shooting provided most of the offense in the second half and Mobley came up time after time, especially with his three free throws with a minute left. This team may have suffered injuries to every significant player thus far, but their win over a high quality opponent while shorthanded is impressive, and there is no reason they cannot build off this win.

Smith Should Be A Bigger Force For Georgetown

DePaul vs. Georgetown:

Joshua Smith needs to produce more offensively: The big fella came in and dominated in his first game against Oregon, but since he was beaten up by Kansas, he has struggled mightily, and yesterday was no difference. Against a smaller and inexperienced front line, he only had five points and one assist, without even recording a rebound. There is no reason why Smith, who has been heralded as an excellent low post scorer since he arrived in UCLA, should not average at least 10 points during conference play. The Hoyas have struggled at times to score so far and Smith is a player who can provide instant offense. He also can create for his teammates by attracting double teams and finding them. Smith needs to get to the line, to get opponents in foul trouble and also get some easy points. The Hoyas have a good team with many pieces that make a winning team, but they could use a player you can dump it down to and let go to work on the block.

Having lost their two best players in point guard Jordan Theodore and burly forward Herb Pope, the Pirates were not expected to make a lot of noise in the Big East this season and it became quickly apparent that Kevin Willard‘s team was not only less talented but also severely undermanned against the rest of the conference. The team finished the season 15-18 and a dismal 3-15 in conference play with two of those wins coming against the teams that finished behind them in the conference standings (South Florida and DePaul). None of this was surprising to those who followed the team and knew that the Pirates would struggle mightily to replace the production of Pope and Theodore, but if they had been slightly more competitive, it would have at least given Willard something to point to as far as improvement goes. Let’s dive a bit deeper into why Seton Hall wasn’t able to right the ship this season.

Fuquan Edwin Emerged As A Big-Time Big East Player, But He Was The Only One.

The Good

When your best win as a team was either a four-point win over Wake Forest or a one-point win over Villanova, it can be hard to find positives in what quickly became a lost season. But there were some individual positives, such as the play of junior guard Fuquan Edwin, who was always one of the best defenders in the conference but actually emerged as a versatile and dangerous offensive threat for the Pirates this season. Sophomore guard Aaron Cosby became a dangerous outside shooter and important offensive cog, and before his season ended prematurely thanks to shoulder surgery, sophomore forward Brandon Mobley was putting together a solid season and should be an important piece to next year’s team. Despite falling drastically in both offensive and defensive efficiency this season, the Pirates were still relatively judicious shot-takers and they were also an above-average defensive team, at least when they played inspired basketball.

Joe Dzuback is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after Saturday’s games at the Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational featuring Seton Hall, LIU, Manhattan, and South Carolina.

Down by eight to Long Island University just over seven minutes into the game, coach Kevin Willard, hanging a threat of two-a-days over Christmas if the Hall’s backcourt did not start to look to the frontcourt before launching shots, brought sophomore Brandon Mobley back into the game to team with sophomore Eugene Teague. Mobley, who seemed more focused in Saturday’s game, combined with Teague to shut down the lane and sweep the Blackbirds off the boards. Less than two minutes later, LIU freshman forward Khalil Murphy picked up his second foul, and with the score tied 19-all and Murphy grabbing the pine, the Pirates worked the ball inside to Mobley who dunked and started a 10-2 run. Five minutes later LIU senior forward Jamal Olasewere picked up his second foul and joined Murphy on the sideline, while Seton Hall, faced with little opposition inside, extended its lead even more with a 19-8 run that virtually closed out the game even before the intermission. A composed and confident Pirates squad duplicated their first half effort, posting a 12-point second half advantage to close out the Invitational with an 89-59 victory.

Kevin Willard’s crew is off to an outstanding start (US Presswire)

Jamal Olasewere, forced to shoulder an even larger share of the Blackbirds’ offense with the injury to senior forward Julian Boyd, led all scorers with 27, nine points better than his season average. Freshman forward E. J. Reed, who will, “have to grow up fast” according to first year coach Fred Perri, chipped in with eight points. Meanwhile, Mobley, whose mid-week slumps according to Willard are attributed to his concern for academics, paced the Pirates with 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field. Five other Pirates posted double figure points totals in a well-distributed scoring blitz.

The Pirates raise their record to 10-2 with this victory. With one more non-conference game to play before they open conference play at DePaul, Seton Hall is poised to begin conference play with a record that nearly matches last season’s promising 11-1 start. Whether the Pirates are poised to become one of this season’s surprise teams in the Big East remains to be seen, but the early returns are promising.